


Blizzard

by ZoeBug



Series: Cutting Shapes (and Side Pieces) [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drabble, Introspection, M/M, POV Marco Bott, Side Pieces: Cutting Shapes, Takes place after chapter 11 of CS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6102595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's like winter come early when you were expecting another month of sunlight, seeing him there in front of me. Like you knew it was growing cold and the chill had begun biting at the tips of your fingers for weeks but you thought...</p><p>You thought you had a bit longer before the blizzard set in around you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blizzard

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece for my fic ["Cutting Shapes"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1853821) from Marco's POV.
> 
> Marco got noisy and was very concerned general readers were not getting his thought process through this very trying time of the story so I had to write this. Takes place post-Ch 11 and into the first part of Ch 12.
> 
> Inspired by ["Medicine by Daughter (Sound Remedy Remix)"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPfeTwl8Kw) Enjoy!

It's like winter come early when you were expecting another month of sunlight, seeing him there in front of me. Like you knew it was growing cold and the chill had begun biting at the tips of your fingers for weeks but you thought...

You thought you had a bit longer before the blizzard set in around you.

See, I don’t _understand_ the way Jean does.

I don't understand the way patterns stretch themselves between people like reaching vines stretching across the space between trees. I can't read the subtle language between words and movements and in the empty spaces between hands or between lips where breaths mingle like he can. Sometimes I think that literacy is part of why Jean suffers like he does. It can't be easy to see so much more than others do.

And when I do understand, I am much, much slower about it than Jean is. Which is why, I think, I didn’t see until long after I’d left him there, alone on the sidewalk that Jean―behind the haze in his eyes and the way every movement of his body drew him nearer to me―has been living in winter for far longer than I'd realized.

I suppose it’s easy not to show signs of frostbite when you’ve been vigilantly keeping yourself as far from the storm as you can. It’s easier not to freeze to death when you shut yourself indoors, when you wrap yourself in every coat and blanket within reach and watch the snow only through windows from across rooms.

I had been stupid not to realize before now that the tremors of his hands and the stuttering of his words had not come with any malicious intent on his part. They hadn't come from disinterest or discomfort about me or anything I'd thought I'd been so careful about.

Looking back, it is so horrifically obvious. Of course he had been shaking, stepping out into the storm after so long trying desperately to keep from freezing.

One of the few things I _do_ understand is that it's a hard, _hard_ thing to be someone who knows the cold so intimately. It's hard, sometimes, to assure yourself that no part of you is truly made of ice, that no part of you is held up, held _together_ by it. And it’s doubly hard to be two people who know full well the havoc storms can wreak and yet attempt keep each other warm without stripping yourself bare in the process. Which is why I didn't realize―couldn't read the signs the way Jean does so easily―until long after I'd left him there alone in front of Karanese slowly freezing by himself.

How stupid I'd been. I'd done so much to bridge the gap between us where Jean couldn't, was _unable_ to in a way I understood so readily. I'd given him space, given him apologies, given him vulnerability, but when he needed me to cross that empty space where he could find no footing, found himself paralyzed with frostbite... I turned and left. I'd felt the chill nipping at my fingers again, felt the freezing wind reaching me and ran.

I really do think Jean is braver than I am.

I think when you understand what it's like to live in constant fear of something as unpredictable and as powerful as the forces of nature residing within your mind, you can't deny the quiet, unassuming kind of courage Jean shows.

From the outside, one might think I was the brave one, the gracious one, the one who made all the allowances for Jean, but I...

When the blizzard came for me again, I ran. Jean walked out into it to reach me.

And I left him there to weather it alone at the first stumbling footstep he took.

So it's my turn, I think. To be kind and courageous for him. To brave the storm for him. To apologize for being illiterate in the language he speaks in that I’d assured him I could read. For not seeing what was so obvious there in front of me that night under the harsh glow of neon.

Jean is not faultless in this, I know. And neither is it entirely my fault and I am trying to accept that. It's not anyone's, in the end. We're two people who have to be vigilant of the storms within us that may surge up at any moment and we have every reason to be scared and selfish and board up the shutters on each other.

But I think its time I admitted to myself that acts of bravery that come easy to me are, at the end of the day, not truly bravery at all. And that maybe―just maybe―if I meet him halfway he'll let me take his hand once more. He’ll allow me to rub warmth back into his chilled extremities and I will allow him to make me braver than I could ever have been on my own.

**Author's Note:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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